


Blessed are the Merciful

by esteoflorien



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-28
Updated: 2013-10-28
Packaged: 2017-12-30 18:21:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1021901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/esteoflorien/pseuds/esteoflorien
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sarah O’Brien is horrified by Thomas’s betrayal, far more than she is disgusted by Bates’s smug arrogance. Canon resolution for episode 8 of series 3.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blessed are the Merciful

Sarah O’Brien is horrified by Thomas’s betrayal, far more than she is disgusted by Bates’s smug arrogance. _They don’t know anything beyond_ soap _,_ she reminds herself, hoping to calm herself on the walk back to Downton Abbey from the Bates’s cottage.  _All Thomas knows is that he caught me crying and mumbling on about soap. He doesn’t know what it means, so neither could Bates_. She repeats it over and over in her head, willing herself to believe it, but she can’t manage to wrap her head around it.  _He had to have had an inkling about it for him to have said it,_ she thinks. The thought wrenches her stomach: it’s not that she’s afraid of losing her position; she’d resigned herself to that sad inevitability the second she heard Lady Grantham’s scream. It’s that she’s afraid of being sent away from her mistress, which would be a far worse fate, depriving her not only of her only way of atoning for her many sins.

Despite her swirling emotions, there’s afternoon tea to be laid out, and she sets out for Lady Grantham’s bedroom with the tray not five minutes after her return. She settles the tray down on the table only to find that Lady Grantham has fallen asleep reading on the divan. She looks her age, now, in the waning afternoon light. Her face is lined and her lips no longer as full as Sarah remembers, but she’s beautiful, nevertheless.

Sarah kneels beside her on the carpet, but can’t bring herself to gently wake her just yet. Despite her best efforts, she can’t push the memory of that afternoon out of her head, not now that Bates has raised the spectre of it. She’s begged for forgiveness many times since, each of which she remembers clearly: once, when she thought Lady Grantham might die; others, when she’s asleep, like this.

“I didn’t push the soap out of the way, that day,” she murmurs into the silence. “I was angry and hurt and stupid and jumped to conclusions and didn’t care one way or the other what happened to you. But I didn’t think about the boy. I  _never_ wanted any harm to come to the child,” she says. It’s funny, but it’s become more difficult to say this little speech over the years. “And when that instant of anger passed, I  _never_ wanted any harm to come to you. But it was too late.”

“I know,” Lady Grantham says quietly, her eyes still closed.

She startles at the sound of Lady Grantham’s soft voice and a chill runs down her back. “How could you know?”

“You’ve told me before, haven’t you? When you think I’m asleep.”

Sarah nods. “I keep telling you because I don’t know how to say it when you’re awake.”

“I’m awake now,” Lady Grantham replies, and so she is, even if she hasn’t moved a muscle since she began speaking. She’s curiously calm; there’s no trace of rage or ire or simple, wholly expected anger – but then, Sarah realizes, Lady Grantham knows what she’s going to say. Perhaps the fury and the hurt will come later.

Sarah shifts off her knees to sit heavily on the floor, leaning her head against the arm of the divan. It’s firmer than she expected; it’s what she deserves. “That day, you’d asked me about training lady’s maids.”

“I remember. We were – “

“Looking for a new lady’s maid for Lady Grantham. I know that, now. But that day, I thought you were going to replace me.”

“I wasn’t,” she says, simply.

“No, you weren’t. But I didn’t know that, not yet. And then the soap fell, and split in two, and I only handed you one piece. I didn’t clean the floor, and I told you the other half was under the tub. In truth, I’d kicked it. I don’t know where it was.”

“So it might have been under the tub, but it just as easily might have been where I stepped out, or it might have been halfway across the floor.”

“I don’t know,” Sarah says, uselessly, her voice thick. “I didn’t look after the fact. It didn’t matter.”

“I don’t know what I slipped on,” Lady Grantham says, in a distant tone. “It might have been the slick floor; it might have been the bar.”

Sarah feels the tears burning at the back of her eyes and turns her face into the armrest to hide them from her mistress. “I left you alone,” she mutters. “Then I thought better of it, but it was too late.” 

“Did you know you apologized to me? I didn’t think you remembered. That was the first time you said it.”

She doesn’t remember, not really. She remembers Cora’s scream – for she was  _Cora_  in that moment, how could she be anything else? – and she remembers gathering her into her arms, holding her close and kissing her forehead, but looking away when the blood began to flow. She remembers holding Cora’s head firmly against her shoulder, preventing her movement, as she whispered to her,  _look at me, look only at me_ , over and over again after the doctor was called and began his work. She remembers the tears that rimmed Cora’s eyes red. She remembers the chill of Cora’s hand and the sweat on her skin and the stillness of her, lying unmoving in her bed. She remembers the smile and thanks at the garden party.

Lady Grantham takes her silence as answer enough. “I didn’t think you did; I thought you were too upset. At first I thought you were raving, but then I understood.”

“What did I say?” Sarah asks, her voice harsh.

 “That you were terribly sorry, that it was your fault, that you were unthinkably cruel, leaving the soap there, that you were angry but you didn’t really – when it came down to it, I suppose – want to hurt me. But it was too late by that point.”

“Oh.”

“I didn’t realize what you were angry about until Lady Grantham mentioned her new lady’s maid a few weeks later, and then I knew.”

Sarah shakes her head. “That’s only an explanation, not an excuse. There’s no excuse for what I did.”

“No, there’s not,” Lady Grantham says, and Sarah supposes this is when she really will be sent on her way.

Sarah closes her eyes against the tears. “I can’t tell you how very sorry I am for it, my lady,” she murmurs. “It’s my fault, and all I can do is apologize for it, but there’s nothing that will take it back.”

“No,” she says, tiredly. They sit in silence, listening to each other’s breath, and Sarah considers that this is the most intimate moment she’s ever shared with someone, this sharing of her greatest sin, her deepest regret, and Lady Grantham’s tragedy; it’s more intimate than mopping Lady Grantham’s forehead during her illness, more intimate than hiding her face from the blood.

“It was an accident,” Lady Grantham says, conversationally. “I’ve had a long time to think about it. The miscarriage was an accident, at any rate.”

“But I meant to – “

“Not really,” Lady Grantham says. “You didn’t really want to hurt me, once your head caught up with you. But very well: the miscarriage was an unintended consequence of a harmful action.”

“I don’t deserve to ask for your forgiveness,” Sarah murmurs, because it’s the one thing she needs to hear.

“I forgive you,” Lady Grantham says, quickly, with surprise. “Of course I do.”

“How can you even say that?” Sarah asks, shocking herself with her temerity.

“Given that you kept your position, even after confessing to what you did, I should think you’ve had my forgiveness for a long time.”

“Yes,” Sarah concedes. “But I need to hear it nevertheless.”

The silk of her morning dress rustles as Lady Grantham shifts around, and Sarah looks up to find that she’s propped herself upright, her hand resting lightly on Sarah’s.

“I forgive you, Sarah,” she says firmly, the first time Sarah can recall her using her given name. “Be at peace, now. We’ve each said what we needed to say.”

Sarah bows her head and kisses Lady Grantham’s hand, veritably bathing her hand with tears.

“Hush, now,” Lady Grantham says, running her fingers through the hair at her crown to soothe her. “There’s no call for tears, not any longer.”

“How can you possibly forgive me?” she asks. “Don’t you want to know why?”

Lady Grantham closes her eyes and takes a very deep breath. “ _Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy_ ,” she recites. “My forgiveness is mine to give, and to give freely; it’s not conditional on your explanation. You had it before you asked.” She sighs. “You know as well as I that I don’t hold with religion,” she murmurs. “I can’t, not as a woman with two children taken from me. But I firmly believe that, Sarah.”

There’s nothing she can say to that, but now, knowing that, beyond all reason and wild imaginings, she this woman’s forgiveness, there’s nothing she can possibly do but weep with regret and relief. Lady Grantham seems to understand, for her hand drifts to her back, comforting her with the lightest of touches.

~

After the family has sat to dinner, after she has cornered Jimmy and cajoled him into dropping his accusations, Sarah steps outside to clear her head, hoping to have a moment of peace to herself, but Thomas –  _Mr. Barrow_  – is outside already.

“You spoke to Jimmy,” he says. It’s not a question. “I didn’t tell Bates anything, you know. He doesn’t have the faintest idea. Which is slightly less than I have.”

“I did,” she murmurs. “I didn’t want any of this for us. It got out of hand.”

“It did,” he said. He laughs. “I threatened your position. Twice. I’m sorry for that, by the way. I suppose I  still owe you one.”

“That’s long over. No harm was done – although you couldn’t have known that.”

Thomas shrugs and nods; he’s said his piece on the subject. “Smoke?”

“Why not,” she says. Perhaps the first few steps back to friendship look something like these. He lights it for her, solicitously.

 “You saved my life, you know,” he says. “And then you tried to ruin it. That’s what I couldn’t understand.”

“You did it to me first,” she says. “You disliked Alfred and you tried to get her ladyship to send me away. You knew perfectly well what would ruin me.”

He laughs. “We both know I don’t know whatever secret that is,” he says. “And whatever it is, it probably wouldn’t make half the difference to her that you seem to think it would.” He takes a long drag on his cigarette.

She reaches out and rests her hand on Thomas’s; in this instant, he looks for all the world like a broken little boy, and she hates herself for having a hand in making him so. “I’m sorry,” she says, and when he drops his cigarette, stubbing it out with his boot, so as to cover her hand with his own, she knows she’s forgiven. This isn’t at all comparable to the  _relief_  she felt with Lady Grantham this afternoon, but when Thomas shrugs out of his jacket and drapes it around her shoulders, she feels the same sense of utter gratitude. 


End file.
